“I looked back too early and lost separation with the receiver. He got the extra step because when I looked back I slowed down a little and he made the catch,” Smith said.

For cornerbacks, that one mistake can lead to a bad game. Put a second on top of it – like the pass interference call Hurd drew when Smith held him a few plays later – and you’re entering horrendous territory.

“It’s been a learning process to say the list,” said Smith, who did pull in one of the team’s three interceptions this preseasons. “For the most part I think I had pretty good games, but I always give up that one play that messes it all up. I just have to work on finishing more, and work on my eyes.

“My eyes have gotten me in trouble. But I’m not too concerned because all these things are easy to correct.”

Smith stressed that his uneven play this preseason, where he was even demoted for one game because he showed up late, hasn’t shaken his confidence.

“I have high expectations for myself. The coaching staff we have, and the faith they have in me, I know what I’m capable of doing,” said Smith, contributed 39 tackles and 12 deflections his rookie season. “It’s just the smallest things, plays [like the touchdown to Hurd, and a pass interference call] I can’t afford to happen if I’m expected to play the way I know I can.”

Smith said he’ll spend this week cleaning up his game, improving on his fundamentals and technique, trying to discipline himself to the point he stops taking calculated gambles like taking sneak peaks into the backfield.

He’d hate to be perceived as the weak link of the Dolphins secondary, and likely realizes the coaches are running out of patience, and could turn to some of their other options (like 2006 first-round pick Jason Allen, and recently acquired nickel cornerback Benny Sapp) until Will Allen’s knee is healthy enough for him to become a starter.

Smith is confident the secondary will no longer be this team’s weak link. He’s also optimistic the Dolphins defense will drastically improve once defensive coordinator Mike Nolan ends the vanilla play calling, and unleashes some of his exotic blitzes, which sometimes calls for cornerbacks to be pass rushers.

“It’s going to be exciting. We’ve got guys coming from all over,” Smith said. “To know we’re going to go out there and really unload is exciting.”

But it won’t be as exciting for Smith if he’s watching it from the sidelines.

A cornerback’s ability to recover can often save him from getting torched. This week Smith’s recovery skills will be put to the test.

I feel suckerpunched, like just having walked down the aisle and finding out my wife is sleeping with my best friend. I bought game tickets in good faith believing that this team wanted to win, and now once they have our money they go and dump salaries. What a shady organization Steven Ross is running. I have to drive two hours each way to go to those games, and now to watch Robert Rose play. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

I can not believe how some of you can talk yourself into believing these are great moves. Lets dump a proven cornerback like Will Allen or a DE like Charles Grant who near Pro Bowl for years, for non drafted players, and sixth rounders who couldn’t make it in Seattle or Cleveland. Seriously? Hello this is reality, to Dolphin fans. No I guess like Barnum and Bailey, Steven Ross can continue to get suckers like you to part with your money for a garbage product. You guys all talking playoffs, we will be fighting with the Bills for the basement this year.

I’m disappointed the Lions got the TE free agent I had my eye on, Spencer Havner who was cut by Green Bay. Good blocker and special teamer, 7 receptions last year, 6 first downs, 4 TDs. Maybe the Fins had a claim on him, but the Lions would have had the priority claim for him.

I remember Tony Sparano saying about Nalbone when he drafted him that this was a pick out of a personal relationship. He said that someone he trusts told him about Nalbone, and Sparano decided to commit to the kid, and develop him. But in two years, Nalbone has failed to play a game and Sparano has visibly been a bit frustrated with him from the start for dropping balls. Now Sparano cans David Martin who gives the Bills a good weapon for week 1 against us, who is familiar with our calls, and keeps Nalbone to do what? He hasn’t excelled in practice, and he hasn’t….(Sob!..) played a game.. Sparano’s decision are going to keep backfiring. (see J. Long)

If Charles Grant, Marques Douglas, and Cory Procter added 2 wins onto our record, something had already gone terribly wrong…. but that’s just the way I see it… The combination of the 3 would have been lucky to take half the snaps Merling took last year.

I just came back for a sec because I realized I tell people “they are over reacting” a lot… This could be related to the copious amounts of “herbal medicine” I intake, causing me to under-react to many things… LOL… Don’t jump ship now folks, the season hasn’t even started… GO DOLPHINS…

“StarCaps, Bro. I was surprised we even took him on to begin with. But he looked GOOD for us.”

And here I thought Parcells & Jeff were geniuses for bringing in Grant & Douglas after Merling went down only to find out that we got them in shape so they can play for the Jets or NE who both need help @ DE. We sit here & make fun of the moves that the Jets make well it least they want to win as an organization. What are we trying to do??? Lose??? I don’t get it.

And then David Martin signs with the Bills??? This is like Wannstadt & Cameron all over again.

I’m a little surprised by the release of Grant and Douglas but I’m not sure how much they really would have contributed anyway. The release of Martin really shocked me.

Are we really going into the season with just Fasano and Nalbone? Makes me wonder how effective our 2 TE set will be this year. And here I was thinking the same thing as Omar that it would be our scariest offensive formation.

All of those moves make no sense. I think we have 5 Tackles, three G’s, & two Centers. Do we really need 5 Tackles with 3 of them never playing a down in the NFL??? And why are we the only team that wants them on our roster. These are 3 PS players taking up three roster spots. I think Ireland has clearly taken over the reigns since 2008.

WHP, I’m ok with releasing Grant and Douglas and replacing them with younger guys who have possible potential. I just don’t know how much these two would have contributed this year so why not develop possible talent instead? As for the Olinmen, it’s obvious the FO is concerned there, as they should be. I’m still reeling a bit over how bad our Oline play was in the PS.

you mean the SAME number of players every other team has lost after roster cuts?

I have a suggestion. Go to the sports blogs of the other 31 nfl teams and you will see an almost exact carbon copy of our blog. Every team has fans who are panicking about roster cuts and asking for the head of their respective team’s front office.

We all knew roster cuts meant more than a few players we liked were not gonna make it. Now imagine if we kept some of the ones you liked but did not keep marlon moore or Robert Wallace?

Tbh, Donald Thomas was the biggest shock to me of any of these guys… I’d still take him back if I could take back any of the guys we let go.

Will Allen cb with a bad knee, who knows how long it’d take for him to have the health and confidence to really play well.

David Martin, coming off missing an entire season, 31 years old with bad knees and came in off the street out of shape, didn’t catch a single pass all preseason.

Grant and Douglas have their own issues starting with age extending to other areas. Procter an okay versatile guy but his potential is tapped out and he is what he is, i’d have been more likely to think we get rid of Grove and have Procter backup center but we didn’t.

re: Martin, he must not have been the player he was from ‘08 because I really saw him adding something more from the TE position in the middle of the field. I’m really not sold on Nalbone though so I’m pretty concerned about our TE situation.

I’ll say one last thing about these cuts. Did we really expect to keep all our favorite “in the bubble” guys? Of the remaining 53 the only one that’s a head scratcher for me is David Martin, and only marginally. Martin has done nothing to indicate he’s going to be an upgrade for us, and all of the evidence we have is the 2008 season prior to his injury.

Other than that, let’s be honest with ourselves, these guys who were cut had no significant impact, if any, on our scheme or playmaking.

I truly believe this team is better. Also, I believe we’re going 13-3 so I admit I’m a bit of a homer.

Case in point, let’s not act like the season is already over before it begins. Let us be actual fans who root for our team instead of throwing them under the bus based purely on speculative theory.

“Seahawks released S Jordan Babineaux.
Combined with the release of Julius Jones, Seattle just saved nearly $5 million in salary. Babineaux was due $2.45 million — too much for a third safety, even if “Big Play Babs” would’ve been one of the league’s top reserves at the position. The 28-year-old won’t last long on the open market.”
Source: Adam Schefter on Twitter

Ethan has an article that Sean Smith has been demoted, and that Jason Allen will be starting at cornerback. But hey, Will Allen was totally expendable, cause Steven Ross says we are Super Bowl bound. I think he meant to say top ten draft pick bound. Anyone else excited about the Carl Peterson era that is coming? He is used to dealing with cheap owners. And you know how many Super Bowls he won in KC, and he can do even better than Ireland on wasting draft picks. Which is nice.

The question is whether we are a better team now then we were yesterday & the answer is no.”

Nope… but i’m not a big fan of stop gaps anyway and I like the Geather pickup. I really think that one tackle is probably moving to guard based on his size.

But in honesty, are we much worse? I don’t think so, like I said, these guys would have been lucky to get half the snaps Merling got last year. Most these guys were cut this offseason, not because a team needed to get to 53 and were forced to cut them, probably praying they’d make it back to their practice squads, they didn’t even want these guys on their 80 and chose to cut them.

WHP, the Seahawks are in year one of rebuilding that is when you go with youth, so the moves make sense for them. The Trifecta promised that by year three is when we would start to compete, so dumping veterans that can help us win now for players that never played college football makes no sense for us. That is the big difference.

Edswood: Did you see my reply to your reply for the comments listed around 3 or 4PM?–Ross needs to dump salaries NOW because their won’t be a 2012 season!! Some NFL owners may default on loans because of the lack of income in 2012 and, perhaps, 2011. The owners’ lockout combined with the union’s decertification means 2011 is dead and 2012 may be dead, too!!–Two years of no NFL Football is NOT an impossibility. Those fans who renew their tickets for 2011 are taking a huge risk unless the owners and players come to an agreement before the ticket renewal period next year. And the chances of that happening are very slim in my opinion. So look for financially stressed owners to dump salaries like crazy as fast as they can.

Every member of the national media is anti-Miami except Chris Mortensen and Peter King who are both lodged up Parcell’s a__ __. If the Dolphins were to go 13-3 and win the Superbowl, all the stories would be how the other team lost and not how the Fins won.

BobCr wrote:
Same old problems.
1) We have no pass rush.
2) Our defensive backfield has all kinds of holes in it. People will be able to throw short passes all day long on us.
3) There is no containment by the OLBs, so they’ll be able to run to the outside on us, too.
These problems date back several years, and we still haven’t fixed them.

From the Indystar on the Colts:

“One other comment. At the end of the season, Bill Polian announced that the reason the Colts didn’t win the Super Bowl was because of the Offensive Line. Well, after the big announcement, Ryan Lilja became the scapegoat and was released. Now, here we are ready to start the season, and here’s the question: Has Bill Polian done anything to improve the offensive line? If the offensive line was the weak point for this team a year ago, what did BP do to improve it? The OL is the biggest “?” for this team…a bigger “?” now than at the end of the 2009 season. Good work BP.”

From NOLA.com on the Saint’s blog:

“Cloudy, murky? I can think of some other choice words for the LB situation. How about unsettling or just pathetic. After watching the replay of the Tenn. game, and Blount’s bullying of the Saints run defense, GW has to be very concerned.”

Not saying that we dont have our share of problems but every other team in this league has issues that can easily be blown out of proportion if we think about it too much.

The one bright spot are the new TEs we have. Hopefully our offense will do better in the Red Zone as a result.
Hopefully this season will be better than the last few, but I’m not counting on it.

From the Denver Post

“The decisions made by this arrogant coach and his general manager are marginal at best. We traded away good, decent players who would have and could have contributed greatly to the success of this team and for what? To replace one of them with a carbon copy with less skills and the other with someone who will not carry the ball once this season because of a season-ending injury.”

For starters, I have never worked for a professional football team in any capacity. However I appreciate the vote of confidence. LOL!!!

If I were I would damn well make sure I had an experienced player that was a backup to Jerry & Incognito. If either player gets hurt, who do you go with since Procter & Thomas have now been cut??? No backup at Guard??? That’s just stupid.

That combined with having a backup TE without any playing experience is inexcusable for any team.

Its all sounds good, but the facts are that no one on this blog actually coached any of these players, evaluated them on a daily basis, talked with them personally, watched them in the weight room, before and after practice, etc, etc. Its easy to talk about all this, but the fact remains that no one here actually has to make any decisions…back seat drivers the whole lot of you…

Let the coaches coach, general manager manage and Parcells be Parcells. Time will tell whether these moves were good or not, but it sure is easy to drive from the back seat when you have no actual responsibility or enough information to actually to make educated opinions…

All you do is b!tch, whine and complain and the season hasn’t even started…Can’t wait to hear from you all during the season!

Holy cow someone call the WHAAAAAMBULENCE. I think 2/3 rds of the bloggers in hur have completley lost their minds. OH MEH GAWD we cut a 3rd-4th stringer today and guess what? WE PICK SOME MORE. WOW the sky is falling and we can never hope to win a game. Our drafting sucks even though we somehow managed to get Henne, Long, Vontae, Smith(though he is struggling atm), Merling(injured, off field issues aside he WAS slated to be starting), Clemans, Fasano(will have break out yr), Odrick, Misi, Jerry, …..is this list getting ANY STINKING SMALLER…..and yet there are 20 football gurus lining up to cry their eyes out on this blog…..makes it almost a shame to call some of u peeps fans ><

OMAR KELLY was unsuccessful at achieving his childhood dream to become a super hero, so he figured he'd do the next best thing and become a journalist who fights against injustice, and searches for truth. After being bored to death reporting news and covering politics, he switched to sports.
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IZZY GOULD joined the Sun Sentinel in Feb. 2012 as a Senior Sports Reporter on the Miami Dolphins beat. He came to South Florida fresh off covering the University of Alabama football program, including its 2011 national championship team. More